Tiara's Choice
by StormySerenity
Summary: Cartoon rewritten, companion to Legend of the Promised One.
1. Tiara's Choice 1

Disclaimerthingy: Galliel and Oceanna belong to Mediaworld I suppose but since I'm in America and have never even seen an episode of "The New Adventures of Ocean Girl" the people and planets in this story are probably nothing like the ones Mediaworld owns. No money is being made, anyway.  
  
Stormy says: All I know of the Ocean Girl cartoon I learned from the Mediaworld site plus an mp3 of the opening theme song and later a movie file of the opening. The cartoon itself may be good or not, but those tidbits were pretty interesting. So here's my spin on OG, Oceanna, real-Neri and purple-hair-Neri. Our story begins long before the time of the Promised One...  
  
Tiara's Choice 1  
Crystal  
The murals had been on the palace walls as long as Tiara could remember. Each year they grew, as the life of Oceanna went on and more discoveries and triumphs needed to be recorded. Twenty years of a planet's life in cut stone and carving in the walls of the palace. The first picture was of the landing and the ceremony naming the planet. This was the only one Tiara herself was in, the ceremony when her mother named her the first princess of Oceanna. It was a lot to live up to, as was being the grand-daughter of Neri herself. Neri the real legend, the princess who had united the peoples of the Lapis planet and Earth and begun the expansion to the stars.  
Tiara leaned against the wall, her eyes on the sky outside the arched windows. The sun was setting, and the doctors hadn't given her any news in a while. It would be a tragedy, but not enough to carve into the walls, if the wizard-knight Galiel died from the bite of a serpent. Worst for Tiara, because Galiel was a friend and she didn't have friends to spare.  
They had known each other as long as they could remember. In school Galiel had always been the quiet older student who answer every question but only sometimes bothered. He had brought her flowers, once, for the first day of the greening season.  
But the time Tiara had really noticed him had been at her coronation two years before. Neri had come from Lapis to attend it, one of her last journeys. Tiara had been hugely impressed by the ancient, beautiful matriarch. Neri had come to see the new planet and to offer the help of her handmaiden, an old woman named Laeka who had very strong foreseeing powers.  
Laeka's ancient voice had intoned, "This is a world of magic, but magic will be its downfall as all power draws greed to it." And here her eyes had flickered up and looked straight at Galiel. "But in the time of darkness when confusion and war shadow this beautiful world, there will be a hero. The Promised One will emerge from the people and will bring a new age and save... our ocean..."  
The scribes were writing down every word.  
Tiara wondered. Time of darkness? And the way Laeka had glanced up at Galiel... the old foreseer was almost blind and Tiara was certain she hadn't meant to look at anyone in particular, and probably didn't know she had. But Galiel had noticed. And other people had noticed too, from the whispers going around the room.  
Tiara had stepped forward to break the gossip. "Hear that? When this world is most in danger, it will have a hero. The Promised one!"  
"The Promised One!" echoed the shout.  
There, carved in the mosaic walls was the visit of Neri and Laeka. Tiara leaned her forehead on her grandmother's image, trying to draw strength and calm into herself. Neri and Laeka were both passed now, both had spoken comforting words with their last breaths, trying to keep their people from despair at being without them.  
A swish of hinges was the door opening; Tiara whirled to see the royal doctor standing in the hallway.  
"How is he?" she asked quickly.  
"Not well, my queen. His fever is high, I... don't think he will last the night.  
Tiara swayed on her feet. Part of her cried that Oceanna couldn't lose its best wizard, and part of her cried for the sweet, strange young man who was her friend. "Is there... nothing left to do?"  
"I hesitate to even suggest it but... the crystals of life have never been used to heal a single person, but they are the only thing I can think of that might save him."  
"I have to think." Tiara moved to the windows, and looked steadily at the ocean beyond.   
A string of plaintive notes chimed in her mind, perfect and sad. They took the form of a question: What will you do?  
Tiara welcomed the voice of the sacred whale. "I need to use the crystals. At least one." She breathed. Her voice was softer than a whisper, but the sacred whale heard her thoughts. "Galiel is important to all of Oceanna, and to me. I'll do everything I can to save him."  
Mandrool sent acceptance, and Tiara knew that when she came to the temple of the crystals the doors would open for her. The sacred whales never judged human decisions, only offered advice and choices.  
Tiara said aloud, "I'll get one of the crystals."  
She hurried up the stairs that curved like vine tendrils through the palace. The crystals' temple was a small room holding only the four crystals in their gold and silver setting. The walls of the room were made of water falling from above. Only the royal family could part the curtains of water and get inside.  
Tiara braced herself and wrapped her hands around one of the crystals. The clear stone hummed and pricked her hands as if it were slightly electric and releasing extra charge into her body. The crystal shaft was as long as her forearm and heavy; she had to carry it cradled close to her chest. Holding it, she was afraid. The crystals kept and balanced all life on Oceanna. What right did she have to use their power to save one life, however important? But how could she not?  
The queen of Oceanna brought the crystal back to the doctors, and her friend.  
  



	2. Tiara's Choice 2

Disclaimer: the world belongs to Mediaworld, this story belongs to me.  
  
  
Tiara's Choice 2  
Transference  
  
Tiara remembered when the first earthquake had been. She had left the palace for a day spent among the people, as the queen did every now and then. These outings were more like vacations than work, and Tiara welcomed them. This time she had chosen to visit one of the fields where plants grew in a foot of water. The queen and a few of her friends joined the ordinary people in picking the long leaves and beating them so the green came away, leaving white fibers that could be woven into anything from shoes to furniture and would harden in that shape when they dried. Tiara hadn't realized the wizard-knight Galiel had come along until she saw him bent over the rows of plants, looking entirely different without his usual white jacket. Galiel's hair hung in his face even more straggly than usual. As always he looked a little thin, like he worked so hard he forgot to eat, often. That might even be the truth; after giving him the crystal to experiment with she'd hardly seen her friend in the flesh, only ecstatic little notes about cell regeneration and other things she understood only vaguely.  
Tiara waded through the field, the water silky on her bare legs. "Galiel. I have seen little of you lately."  
A smile lit his odd violet eyes. "Your cavedweller housemistress ordered me out so I wouldn't turn into a glow worm buried in my cave all day. But it's going to be great, my queen, I have to thank you again for letting me use the crystal. The vaccine I spoke to you about--"  
The ground rocked, up and down as if this valley rode on the ocean. People shrieked. Galiel grabbed Tiara to keep them both standing.  
"But... this continent is stable!" Tiara gasped. The scientists had explained it; the other two continents were subject to earthquakes but this one was not. Until now. "I must return to the palace. The cavedwellers may have had rockfalls." Shaking off her friend's hand, Tiara ran for her carriage.  
  
That night Tiara sat in her window, high up in a tower of the palace. Soft notes of worry rang into her mind from the sea. The sacred whale was frightened. Not of the earthquake as a natural disaster, but something else, some old memory Mandrool kept hidden from Tiara.  
"Please tell me... I'm the queen, I need to know all that I can."  
The echoes that returned to her were vague images and ideas. Men. Whales dying. A man with white hair and grasping hands. Destruction. Life-ending. Red shadows across the sky.  
Something that had almost happened on Earth. Tiara had read about it, how earthly greed and Lapis technology had almost destroyed both planets, but Neri had been able to save them. No... people from both worlds had risked their lives, been ready to suffer pain and maybe give up their lives to save the oceans.  
That was what happened when greed came in people. Someone suffered.  
"But... there's no one like that here, and no synchronium. The crystals are all safe." Tiara didn't understand.  
Mandrool blew a mourning sigh over her. The sacred whale wasn't sure, of anything, either.  
  
The next day Galiel appeared at breakfast. After eating, he managed to catch Tiara alone. ":A moment, my queen?"  
"Of course. What news?" Tiara asked.  
"Come and see... no, come this afternoon and see. You'll be surprised."  
A member of Oceanna's council came to ask about the new building zones, and Galiel slipped away, nodding pleasantly to all he passed.  
Just like when they had met for the second time...  
"Queen Tiara, this boy wishes to enter your service."  
Tiara looked down from her throne. He was familiar, the lean features and heavy black hair.... "I remember you. From that day..."  
"The day Neri and her foreseer friend were here. So does everybody."  
"I am sorry."  
"That's why I'd like to work for you, my queen. The palace wizards and doctors are less available to be stared at and whispered about."  
Pity moved Tiara to nod. "You may stay. I never heard your name..?"  
"Galiel. A Lapis word."  
"I am Tiara. You may use it, since we will be working together."  
"Certainly." But he almost never called her anything other than 'my queen'  
  
"My queen, take a look." A glass cube was presented, with round jewels embedded in it.  
Tiara was perplexed. "What is this?"  
Galiel laughed. "This is the world. The honey-amber is our sun, the others are the five planets."  
Now that she knew, it was easy to see. "This blue pearl is Oceanna and the white one is Shasta right?" Tiara touched the glass beside the two outermost planets. Blue for their world; white for its icy sister that rose in the morning and evening sky.  
"The next one I give you will have planets that move." Galiel told her.  
  
He had changed (hadn't he?) after the serpent bite, turning away from his other work to concentrate on all forms of healing. He had found cures for some of Oceanna's worst diseases. The people called him a genius and thanked him and feared him. Galiel didn't seem to care, just went on with his work with a polite nod and that mocking smile that just dared anyone to look sideways at him.  
And what in the world did he have for her today?  
After lunch Tiara made her way down to the wizard's labs on the bottom floor of the palace. Galiel was waiting, leaning over a blue lighted tank. His face, lit from below, looked very pale and shadows cut hard across his cheeks.  
Tiara paused in the doorway. She hadn't been down here for a long time, or else the room had been changed. It was dark except for the lights over some tanks, and the light of the crystal enthroned in a silver stand in the center of the room. Glass and silver instruments threw the light sideways. Tiara pulled on a white coat from a hook near the door, and bundled her hair under a scarf. "What did you want to show me?"  
"Come and see."  
She went over and looked into the tank. Little wormy bugs floated in the water. Day-fly larvae, they hatched before dawn, were worms in the morning, and changed into flying pests at noon to lay their eggs in the evening. A very ordinary creature. Except it was late afternoon, and these hadn't changed yet. "Galiel? You stopped them from growing older in normal time? How?"  
"The crystal. This cable brings energy from the crystal to mix with the chemicals in their tank. They'll stay like that as long as the power lasts, the crystal could keep a day-fly or a person young for thousands of years. Or forever."  
"Forever?"  
  
  
  
  



	3. Tiara's Choice 3

Disclaimerthingy: no copyright infringement intended, no money made, just think of it as free advertising in the US, Mediaworld folks. Anyway I've never seen your show so I can't do that much damage.  
  
Tiara's Choice 3  
Tide  
  
The palace was shaking. It must be a dream. Someone was shouting.  
Tiara woke, but the shaking didn't stop. She grabbed robe and shoes and ran to the throne room. The ground continued to rock steadily.   
"Queen! We have to evacuate!"  
"Evacuate?"  
"There's a new fault line, right under us, it's about to go, there are people still asleep--"  
Mandrool's voice chimed in Tiara's mind.  
"The crystal!" Tiara screamed, "No!"  
The ground fell away beneath her feet.  
  
Water. She was looking up at the ceiling of the palace, through water. Her breath whispered up in a trail of bubbles.  
Queen?  
"Mandrool?" Tiara whispered. Shock. "What am I breathing?"  
The world changed. One of the crystals is gone. You are needed.  
"Yes." Tiara could swim, she just had to remember how. This water felt light and sweet and supported her body easily. She turned in the water to look around, see who else was in the hall, and start waking them up.  
  
The palace had been on a hill above a bay. Now it was in a bay; water covered all but the tallest towers. Most of the city was still on land, but the rich fields along the shore were lost forever. All the human people discovered they could breathe underwater. That blessing had not come to the cavedwellers, and more than half their population was missing or dead. People left homeless flocked to the palace for help, then turned around and offered help when they realized the queen and council were just as badly off as they were. Tiara and her people organized medical care and sent groups of able-bodied folk to help those in need.  
"Queen!" Three soaked wizard-knights slogged up the slope to Tiara's land camp.  
"Timas, Ronan, Amberi! Are you all right?"  
"Fine, Queen." Amberi replied, sounding tired. "We went down to the labs. There won't be much to salvage down there, the earthquake broke everything."  
"Including the walls. You now have thorough ventilation down there."  
"Hush, Timas. Queen... Galiel is gone. The crystal he used, and his equipment, are gone as well.  
Tiara's breath choked her. She had known, too far inside to admit, that it must have been Galiel. "Are you sure?"  
"Yes. I'm sorry."  
The queen heard herself say, "To upset the balance so far, he must have gone into space." She bowed her head and pain rolled over her. My knight, my friend, why, why... and she should have known. The day before Galiel had come to her and offered his love. Tiara had had to tell him she did not feel the same. Even if she had, the queen could not pair up with someone half her council still watched warily as if Galiel would call down the days of darkness any minute.  
Tiara felt she should have known.  
She should have known.  
Mandrool's soft song interrupted. How could she have known? Galiel had given no sign he would leave, no sign his experiments had produced anything worth leaving with. And he had never been cruel like this in the past. How could she have known? What could she have done? Taken back the crystal, and stopped all the good he was discovering with it?  
No... she had done nothing wrong.  
Tiara lifted her head and pushed her own feelings away. Her people needed her.  
  



	4. Tiara's Choice 4

Disclamer: Mediaworld's is Mediaworld's, mine is mine, and this is a non-profit story so don't send money.  
  
Stormy says: I didn't realize how short this story was... Or how weird. This story is very weird.   
  
Tiara's Choice 4  
Return  
  
"Asta! Marina!"  
"Yes mama?"  
"Yes mama?"  
The twin princesses of Oceanna looked up from their work, Marina playing on a round-bellied flute and Asta drawing with special pencils that worked underwater. Their faces were narrow and fairylike and their hair flowed around them, identical manes of brown curls.  
Tiara stopped to smile. "If you aren't busy I will take you to the temple of the crystals now. You will be seventeen soon; it is about time."  
Before she finished speaking the two girls had abandoned their activities and joined her at the door.  
"At last."  
"Let's go."  
Tiara led the way and her daughters followed, swimming leisurely so they wouldn't pass their mother. The generation born after the earthquake were all stronger swimmers than their parents. They left the palace and went beyond the bay, to the shadowy deeps where few people came.  
"Through here." Tiara ducked through a screen of dark seaweed. She paused inside, waiting for her eyes to adjust.  
"It's dark." Asta said. "Oh! Look!" A school of blue-glowing fish swarmed around them.  
"They show us the way."  
The tiny fish held them in a sphere of moving lights that guided them down a long channel and out into the darkest part of the lower sea. In front of them was a round plain of sand, and across it, the temple. The temple was made of stems of silvery coral growing in the shape of a fish's head. The sacred whale sang greeting from above.  
Marina flitted across to the temple. Asta and Tiara followed.  
Inside was one room, empty except for the three crystals. They were held in a setting meant to hold four, and over the empty space crazed lightning leaped.  
"Is that where the crystal Galiel stole was?"  
"Yes."  
"It looks unbalanced." Marina commented.  
"It is. Don't touch it! The crystals are used to passing power between four, and if anything gets in that space, they'll treat it like another crystal."  
"Zap? Like being close to a lightning strike?"  
"Yes. And the three crystals would disappear to other hiding places."  
Asta cocked her head, trying to understand. "That's... in case someone else tries to steal them?"  
"We didn't set it up. The crystals decided it if anyone did." Tiara hung in the water next to the crystals. It was warm, the light was like warm sunlight.  
"Feels like magic." Marina drifted close, "Are they alive?"  
"Maybe. No one really knows." Tiara thought she heard something. She turned. No one there. The back of the cave was shadowed.  
"Can you use their power, mama?"  
"Only when I need to. Come closer, you can touch the stand down here. That will have to be enough for them to meet you."  
The two girls flitted down and laid their hands on the silver coral that held the crystals.  
"Oh!" Marina gasped.  
"They like us!"  
Tiara smiled, "I'm glad."  
Asta added more, "They... know us already? Because Mandrool knows us? And you know us?"  
"Yes." And Tiara added a whisper of thanks to the sacred whale.  
She felt movement in the water and turned to look.  
Eyes reflected the crystal light.  
A voice whispered, "Tiara?"  
The queen put herself in front of the crystals and her daughters. "Who's there?"  
He moved into the light and Tiara gasped. Galiel had always been lean; now he was almost skeletal. His long hair swirled around a painfully gaunt face and two feverish violet eyes.  
Tiara said over her shoulder, "Asta, Marina, go home and tell your father Galiel is here."  
"Galiel?" Marina gasped out.  
Asta grabbed her sister's hand and fled, calling back, "What will you do, mama?"  
Tiara didn't know. Her daughters were gone before she could have answered, anyway. Then she faced the strange figure that had once been her friend. "Galiel."  
"Tiara."  
"You came back."  
"They are... your children?"  
"Yes." Tiara waited, "Why did you come back?"  
"I need the other crystals, Tiara. The one I have will run out of energy in time."  
"You really did steal it so you could live forever. I knew that but I couldn't believe it." Of course, of course. Galiel looked starved, but his face was young and there was no silver in his long hair. She wondered if being young was worth looking the way he did.  
Galiel followed her thought, or else was just ashamed of his appearance in front of someone he had cared about. "My crystal's power is all I need to eat, but it is far away from here. That's why I look this way."  
"You truly can use the crystal's power to stay young and healthy?"  
"With all four crystals we could both live forever. I came to ask you to come with me."  
"No. I'm Queen of Oceanna, I can't let you take the crystals. And I can't go with you."  
Galiel looked at her, a burning look full of mad energy. "I won't kidnap you, but I need the crystals. You can't stop me."  
It was true, she couldn't. Not by physical strength, and she had no weapon. "Please, don't. You can return to Oceanna in peace if you bring the fourth crystal back."  
"And live an outcast until I die? No. Please come with me Tiara. I love you. We could see the stars together."  
Tiara's eyes flickered to the arch of killing power where the fourth crystal should have been. White hot like a thousand galaxies melted together, like the times she and her family went out at night to lie on blankets on the hillside above the palace. She knew what she had to do. "I've already seen the stars."  
"Tiara--"  
"I'm sorry. I'm weak, I can't think of any other way. To protect Oceanna. From you. Goodbye." She threw herself into the arch of power. The light of the crystals flowed through her, warm, then hot, then burning.  
Galiel screamed, "TIARA!"  
Mandrool's voice whispered, Thank you...  
One of the crystals vanished.  
...you will be remembered...  
The second crystal was gone.  
...through the time of the promised one...  
The last crystal vanished, taking all the light with it.  
  
--End--  
  



End file.
